Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning in the US State Department (2009-2011), is President and CEO of the think tank New America, Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and the author of Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family.

A Tipping Point Missed

WASHINGTON, DC – Before America and the world settle in firmly to the new Donald Trump-based reality, let’s take a little trip down the road not taken. Suppose we had woken up last Wednesday morning to a President-elect Hillary Clinton. And let’s say that, instead of former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres, New Zealand’s Helen Clark or Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva had been picked to succeed Ban Ki-moon as United Nations Secretary-General.

Clinton would have joined the United Kingdom’s Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, helping achieve critical mass in the G7. And a female UN Secretary-General would have placed women at the helm of two of the world’s three biggest international organizations (France’s Christine Lagarde already runs the International Monetary Fund).

With so many female leaders, we would have begun to answer the question: what happens when women run the world? Would the world be better for women? Would it even be different?

According to sociologists, female leaders are of two schools: Queen Bees, who are less likely to help other women advance, and Righteous Women, who make the advancement of other women a priority. Most early pioneers, such as the UK’s Margaret Thatcher, India’s Indira Gandhi, and Israel’s Golda Meir, were Queen Bees; all of them eschewed feminism. More recently, Righteous Women have prevailed. Leaders like Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, and Iceland’s Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir have all sought, in one way or another, to empower women and help them advance in their countries.

Merkel and May have tended to be more like Queen Bees, while Clinton, Lagarde, Clark, and Georgieva are more like Righteous Women. To be fair, the first woman leader in a male-dominated culture must often outman the men. Seeking to advance other women can highlight her own womanhood and thereby weaken her. Clinton, for example, was the third woman US Secretary of State but the first who felt secure enough to be able to champion the cause of women and girls worldwide. As President, she pledged, half her cabinet would be women, and she would further the State Department initiatives launched during her tenure.

Yes, she also would have been careful to avoid being defined as a woman president. Still, just the presence of a plurality of women has an impact. For example, studies of US courts with multiple judges show that male judges are more willing to hear bias cases when one woman is on the bench, and significantly more willing when a second woman is added. “Each of us,” noted Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female member of the US Supreme Court, who was renowned for not wanting to be perceived as a “female” justice, “brings to our job, whatever it is, our lifetime of experience and our values.” In other words, women bring a fresh perspective, heard clearly only when a critical mass of them is present in any institution.

Consider a woman’s perspective on conflict. Evidence does not support the stereotype that women are more pacifist than men – the peacemakers and settlers of male disputes. Women can be Amazons; recall Thatcher’s prosecution of the Falklands War and her admonition to George H.W. Bush not to “go wobbly” in the run-up to the first Gulf War. On the other hand, when men see wars, they naturally imagine the world of the warriors, whereas women see themselves in the women who must try to shelter their families from forces they cannot control. That is precisely the diversity of perspective that is vital to decision-making. And indeed, the Institute for Inclusive Security at Harvard’s Kennedy School has tracked the differences women make as part of peace negotiations.

An acute awareness of the magnitude of civilian suffering in conflicts such as the Syrian civil war or the ongoing horrors in the Congo Basin, and an appreciation of how cycles of violence perpetuate themselves over generations, can actually make women much more likely to urge the use of force in interventions. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously chided Colin Powell for his reluctance to involve the US military in the Balkans in the 1990s, in part because of her own family’s experience as Czech refugees from Communism.

Overall, a woman leader’s decisions are no more predictable than a male leader’s. Women are not monolithic: they have various ideological backgrounds and diverse governing styles. But when the world finally reaches the point when women are not a rarity at the tables of power, when their numbers reach a tipping point, their voices will be heard differently, and their opinions will hold more weight with the men around them.

Women came closer in 2016 than in any other era to reaching that tipping point. But we may still have to wait decades to find out what will happen when we finally do.

Incorrect please try again

Enter the numbers/words aboveEnter the numbers you hearCaptcha is invalid, generate another one and use it

Comments

The real tipping point is the validation of an electoral system which ensured victory for a lout with a minority of the popular vote over an intelligent woman who has won the majority of the popular vote. Read more

I know i live in a racist world.And i dream of a time that no human would consider him/herself a minority .But without ending up a blob of nothingness by destroying individuality.But i also dream of a world where these stereotypes (women leaders for example) stop falling on our brains .Women are as capable of horrible things just like men.If we are to look for leaders ,we should look not on a gender basis ,thinking of the cliches each one has in his brain.It is different set of values/ingredients that define what good is.That is not to say that todays world is anything less than misogynistic.Of course it is.Of course the men that are brought up in societies driven by all kinds of idiocy,are turning out to be racist misogynistic pigs.It s all about losing their grip on control!.Who doesnt like to be in chanrge?eh?...Kill the dictator inside you one friend use to say.I repeat it here for your benefit/loss.your choice. Read more

Cristina Fernandez promoted women's interests. LOL She stole from Argentina and gave the money to e.g. her daughter. And Dilma that women can preside ob=ver the swamp just as well as men. What weird examples to pick when there are so many other capable women as role models. Read more

You just got the tipping point all wrong because you have US blinders on. Thatcher, Merkel and May, in Europe, women in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and South Korea (in Asia) don't count? Wait till the tipping point is reached in France as Le Pen proves mightier than the sword. LoL. Read more

This question has been asked, and answered, many times. There would be no difference at all between male leaders, as a bunch, and female. Because the skillset needed to get to the top of the political/business rat-pile is the same irrespective of group of origin. Fiercely competitive manipulation, recognizable a plausible psychopathy - maybe with a superficially 'nice' social interface. Not pretty, irrespective of the form a particular individual's genitals takes. From Medea via Lady Macbeth to Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi and Maggie Thatcher, female leaders are males in drag.

The notion of a 'kinder, gentler' sisterhood of leaders, is the last gasp of romanticism. I wish this weren't so, but the evidence is overwhelming. Read more

Your article is misogynistic in a subtle way that it talks about women as if they have no indivuality or at least that indivuality is secondary to their female nature. You also obviously never heard of Sarah Palin. She once had a shot at it all. Imagine that. Read more

PS On Air: The Super Germ Threat

NOV 2, 2016

In the latest edition of PS On
Air
, Jim O’Neill discusses how to beat antimicrobial resistance, which
threatens millions of lives, with Gavekal Dragonomics’ Anatole Kaletsky
and Leonardo Maisano of
Il Sole 24 Ore.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Sign up to receive newsletters about what's being discussed on Project Syndicate.

EmailReceive our Sunday newsletterA weekly collection of our most discussed columnsReceive our PS On Point newsletterStay informed of the world's leading opinions on global issues

Why not register an account with us, too? You'll be able to follow individual authors (to receive notifications whenever they publish new articles) and subscribe to more specific, topic-based newsletters.

Project Syndicate provides readers with original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by global leaders and thinkers. By offering incisive perspectives from those who are shaping the world’s economics, politics, science, and culture, Project Syndicate has created an unrivaled global venue for informed public debate.